Eisley - Currents (Equal Vision Records)

Currents, the fourth album from East Texas-based sibling band Eisley, finds the group freeing itself from the one thing that has been its greatest detriment: the record industry 2011’s The Valley was a beautiful, outstanding album that stunningly documented the survival through the tumult of record label hassles and relationship crises. For this album, the band eschewed outside producers, studios, and simply and quietly made the damn thing themselves, resulting in the album that many listeners knew Eisley had in them, but had yet to produce. The main attraction of the band has always been the harmonies between sisters Sherri DuPree-Bemis and Stacy King, and those harmonies are still their greatest asset. Thankfully, the production is mysterious, restrained, and hazy, creating a dreamlike state that makes for an extremely mellow listen. The first three songs are aquatically titled, and they set the mood for the rest of the record. Even though “Blue Fish” and “Drink the Water” send the band towards the depths of Beach House, they quickly pull up from that descent, with the joyous acoustic love song “The Night Comes” and the jaunty “Real World.” Wisely, they’ve eschewed the occasionally overwhelming element of whimsy and fantasy that enhanced their previous recordings in favor of more intricate, complex arrangements and a focus on the ambient quality of their songs; as a result, we have an Eisley that has grown infinitely more interesting than most of their previous recordings and producing a sound that is warm, inviting, and familiar, but one that is purely original. Currents is the maturation of a once next-big-thing, and will surely prove to be one of the highlights of 2013.